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What an ice breaker

By Ian Lowe

I’M ALMOST tempted to become a postgraduate student again—the
university system in New Zealand, working with assorted government agencies, is
introducing a postgraduate course built around a field trip to Antarctica. The
course will help to educate a new breed of student about Antarctica. The 20 or
so students taking part will be by no means confined to those trained in science.
In fact, they are more likely to have backgrounds in engineering, policy
analysis, law, social science and accountancy. Yes, accountants.

“Antarctica has been pretty much a closed shop,” says Tim Higham from
Antarctica New Zealand, the organisation charged with managing New Zealand’s
activities in the Antarctic. “This course will inch the door open for a new
generation (of researchers and professionals) able to contribute to Antarctic
affairs.”

Antarctica New Zealand and the other government agencies, including the
ministries of science and foreign affairs and trade, clearly believe that
Antarctica is facing challenges that go beyond science. These include tourism,
fisheries management, environmental safeguards, and international law and
politics. So the course, for the Postgraduate Certificate in Antarctic Studies,
will be aimed at two groups—those with a science background who would
rather steer clear of pure research and delve into a wider range of issues and
those whose professional background could be tailored to the political, legal
and management issues facing Antarctica.

The course will involve a 12-week programme beginning in January. It will be
based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch where students will be
taught by staff from several NZ universities and the crown research institutes.
Some of the teaching will be done by distance education, including including
links with Antarctica and London. Seven to 10 days will be spent at Scott Base,
New Zealand’s Antarctic base, which can be reached by plane from
Christchurch.

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All this is a sign of times and NZ is to be congratulated for getting on with
it. Such an intensive course, involving time in Antarctica, would not be
possible this side of the Tasman. Australia, with no air base, couldn’t get
students there and back for a 10-day field trip. But I’m still not too sure what
the accountants are meant to do down there. Count the penguins, perhaps.

EXOTIC worms—those imported from overseas—are in the news in
Australia. But, I discover, there are good exotic worms and bad ones. The
Cooperative Research Centre for Waste Management and Pollution Control, based in
Sydney, is trialling the use of worms to turn waste paper into fertiliser. The
technique will be tested at three sites in rural New South Wales and Queensland.
The paper is shredded and mixed with food waste or sewage sludge. That
unappetising mix is then fed to worms. It takes about two million worms nearly
three months to digest each tonne of waste. But the end-product is a
sweet-smelling compost, called a worm cast, which retails for more than
&dollar;250 per tonne! The product has already been shown to increase the
production of grape vines. The new trial will test the suitability of the
compost for other crops. Four different worm varieties, including the exotic
African Night Crawlers, are being supplied by the Sydney company Vermitech.

Exotic worms are proving far less welcome in the north Queensland rainforest
around Cardwell, about 200 kilometres south of Cairns. Researchers studying the
behaviour of feral pigs have found that 98 per cent of the worms on one site in
the Kirrama Range were exotic species, not native to the local forests. The two
most common species have been identified as coming from Brazil and Southeast
Asia. Pigs spread worm eggs around the forest on their snouts and legs.
Queensland Department of Natural Resources researcher Jim Mitchell says that the
displacement of native worms by exotic species could be damaging the rainforest.
Worms play a key role in recycling nutrients, doing in the forest exactly the
same job as the Vermitech worms under controlled conditions. Researchers fear
that the feral worms are out-competing the native varieties, leading to changes
in the nutrient cycle.

CSIRO has completed a deal with the US-based Institute for Scientific
Information. ISI produces the major citation indices, including the Science
Citation Index. Its new product, WEB of SCIENCE, provides Internet access to the
index services. The deal will make the ISI products available on-line to CSIRO
scientists. I’m jealous!